Abstract. In this paper we document "SOCOL", a new chemistry-climate model, which
has been ported for regular PCs and shows good wall-clock performance. An
extensive validation of the model results against present-day climate data
obtained from observations and assimilation data sets shows that the model
describes the climatological state of the atmosphere for the late 1990s with
reasonable accuracy. The model has a significant temperature bias only in
the upper stratosphere and near the tropopause at high latitudes. The latter
is the result of the rather low vertical resolution of the model near the
tropopause. The former can be attributed to a crude representation of
radiation heating in the middle atmosphere. A comparison of the simulated
and observed link between the tropical stratospheric structure and the
strength of the polar vortex shows that in general, both observations and
simulations reveal a higher temperature and ozone mixing ratio in the lower
tropical stratosphere for the case with stronger Polar night jet (PNJ) and
slower Brewer-Dobson circulation as predicted by theoretical studies.